Rail impossible for Humboldt County

Kudos to Jeff Knapp for his excellent "My Word" on the folly of funding yet another railroad study ("Humboldt's port, railroad dreams built on blind faith," Times-Standard, Feb. 2, Page A4). I'd like to add another argument to his list: A civil engineer once pointed out that the only route for a train that could possibly be built on is the North-South route. This is because there are existing tracks and the project could be grandfathered in without extensive environmental impact reports. An East-West route would be over new territory and would require new environmental impact reports for hundreds of miles of territory through mountains and virgin forests. This would cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and take decades to perform, and that's before the court challenges.

If we have a quarter million to spend, let's spend it on upgrading existing infrastructure to make our area more accessible.